Dzombic: We will act promptly

Photo: Aleksandar Dzombic

Republika Srpska Prime Minister Aleksandar Dzombic said today that protests against the label “genocide” on the memorial to Bosniak victims in Visegrad were forwarded to the competent institutions, who should investigate them. “We will act promptly, just as is demanded,” Dzombic said.

SDS Assemblyman Miroslav Kojic during a debate on the first point of the RS National Assembly asked the entity premier what representatives of RS institutions would do, because in Visegrad a memorial to Bosniak victims has been erected, which reads “a tenfold increase in the number of victims and placed qualifications that in this municipality genocide was committed, without legal basis that may cause very negative effects with unforeseeable consequences for Visegrad and RS.”

Dzombic repeated the position of the RS government, that it does not accept collective responsibility for the crimes, and the need to establish al the facts for all victims killed during the war, and that anyone who committed a crime must answer for it, even in the case of Visegrad.

SDS Assemblyman Miroslav Kojic also added that “in this case, this is about one group of Bosniak politicians and associations who constantly with their work try to change the course of history and of the liberation-defense war in Visegrad and the Drina region.”

He sought from Dzombic that “he launch certain criminal proceedings against such people, because this is an obvious example of how a criminal act inciting national, racial, and religious hatred and intolerance… which certain associations are doing, is carried out in this area.”

“Although they represent one nation, that does not give them the right to do what they want and act how they want and misuse these victims themselves,” Kojic said and also sought from the entity premier that he investigate in Visegrad the “responsibility” of the local government, “which is apparently in agreement with these associations and because, unfortunately, of the upcoming elections and the calculation with Bosniak votes, it agreed to everything and tried to hide these facts from the people.”

As a reminder, Kojic already publicly reacted with opposition to the inscription on the memorial in Visegrad, sending a letter to RS President Milorad Dodik, National Assembly President Igor Radojicic, Ministers Petar Djokic and Stanislav Cadji, as well as Veteran’s Organization President Pantelija Curguz, in which he said that “[it] can’t explain what the qualification ‘genocide’ means on the memorial and what negative consequences it could produce.”

In Visegrad on 26 May, a memorial was unveiled to 60 Bosniak victims of the past war and a burial was performed.

On one side of the monument, it reads “Witness of Truth,” and on the other side “Memorial to all murdered and missing Bosniaks, children, women, and men, victims of genocide in Visegrad.”